Curious Lola

Romance Now, Dammit!

It has come to my attention that I might not be romantic. At least that’s the feeling I get as I am introduced to event industry folks as a floral designer. The gist of what I hear as they describe me, in my role, is as follows:

Them: “This is Emily of Lola Event Floral & Design. Their designs have this great earthy, organic, handmade element.”

Me: ”Great.”

Them: “This is Emily Ellen. She does these amazing sculptural creations.”

Me: “Totally!”

Them: “This is Emily. She does these bold, modern arrangements with dramatic shapes.”

Me: “Yup.”

Them: “This is Emily. Her designs club you over the head and drag you by your hair back to her creepy plant cave.”

Me: “Whuh?”

Them: “This is Emily. She stole my socks.”

Me: “Well, why did you leave them by my croissant?”

Well, I’ll have you know, we are planning a little marketing photo shoot this weekend. It’s gonna be romantic. It HAS to be romantic. All the other participants’ work ooze romance.

Then, something started happening. My thought process went a little something like this…

“Well this is all too much texture.” I thought, “How is anyone s’posed to see the shape? It’s so blobby? The flowers look like a junior high cheerleader pyramid. That’s it. Cut out the flowers- just grasses with some flowering branches. Readable. But that’s not country estate in Northern France romantic. (sigh) What mademoiselle wants a load of grass and sticks on her table…?”

“Hmmm. Is there a way to incorporate rocks? Oooh, a pile of jagged rocks in a dark corner with desaturated blue light and a piece of driftwood holding one of Vintage Ambiance’s candelabras… Moody.”

“Bah! Moody does not equal romance.”

“I couldn’t get peonies in the right color. Can I even have romance without peonies? What are romantic flowers.”

“Gasp. The colors. All muted tones. Without the contrast, without the massing, won’t they all resemble the approximate color of undercooked pork?! This is a mess, what am I doing? Can one who drops food on herself daily truly be responsible for creating a romantic arrangement?“

…

Why is suddenly trying to be romantic so damn strange? After all, I have done this before.

How to Make Room for More Food.

There seems to be one Thanksgiving tradition that every family I’ve ever known shares in common. The Thanksgiving walk-about. For some, it could be a way to clear a house made over-hot by all the cooking and lounging bodies. It could be because nobody could stand another game of UNO. For me, its purpose is to guarantee that the ingested mounds of deviled eggs, squash thinga-ma-jig yummies, and spinach dip have not compromised my stomach’s turkey-relish-candied yam holding capacity. Often, several walk-abouts are necessary, including one in between Thanksgiving dinner and Thanksgiving dessert.

It helps when your walk-about is around a picturesque mountain river.

Here’s a photographic account… Also, it’s also kind of a study of steel blue, rust, and desaturated orange colors in nature.

Cowlitz River?

two of my favorite beards.

Why so sad rock? It's Thanksgiving.

Things growing.

steely blue and desaturated orange- the perfect colors of fall.

fuzzy guy.

lichen... so pretty.

another lichen?

more lichen.

evergreen?

Brain Flower- Thoughts on success.

I’ve learned some things recently in my pursuit of developing a successful business. Well, it’s more that I’ve been learning things, and I am reminded of them over and over. I think it’s just recently that I’ve owned it a little more.

First is… I got this.

My old boss told me once that I don’t like being wrong. He was incorrect. I can care less if I’m wrong, but I am very skeptical of those convinced they are right. I’ve found that I’ve got a pretty tuned tweak-o-meter. Some people call it intuition. Mostly it’s just the observation of a lack of a sufficient information and a whole lot of presupposition. Combine that with an innate desire to fill in the blanks, figure out why something is or how it works, and a brain that can pick a creative solution out of a big pile of wtf?- you’ve got a puh-ritty fierce scrabble opponent.

In the past however, I’ve suffered from expert complex. That somewhere out there is a bit of information that somebody has who knows better than me that I should listen to. I’ve convinced myself that the solution I came up with is underwhelming compared to the potential that this all-seeing master can do. Turns out… not quite so. This has lead to money spent on workshops and education, time wasted waiting until I felt I’d gained enough expertise, and numerous “I already knew that” thumps to the noggin.

Turns out… I’m probably more right on than not. And if I’m not, I’m pretty sure I know how to get there. And it usually starts here… with a sketch.

It is not a happy place kind of a thing, but something that thrives when you are doing pretty well in the happy, healthy, safe departments. It’s mostly about action. It’s all about freeing up, giving space and time mentally and physically, and moving your body parts. Not about stopping and judging, more about moving through and adjusting.